Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Pro: great for beginners. I've received this thing for 3 days and I went from a complete drum dummie, (simply didn't know how to coordinate one limb from another), to somewhat of a player with just about 6 practice sessions. Prior to this, I DID NOT know how to play drum. (even I have owned the HD-1 for almost 2 years, it's been sitting there collecting dust.) I am sure if I give it another 3 month of regular practice of 3-5 sessions per week, I know I will be able to play along quite a few songs.
The ability to change the tempo/speed is quite good. You can slow down and repeat a section of the drum to learn again and again.
Con: so many possibilities for improvement:
1. The midi device connecting midi port to USB, the UM-1G module, has a problem in driver. the default windows XP driver only sees it like a USB Audio device, which won't allow it to work.
You must download another driver from Roland's website. The problem with that is the driver doesn't stay. Every time you shut down the computer and restart, the driver seems lost. You start the tutor and it doesn't recognize the midi connection device. It takes many times to tweak the settting (install new hardware, detect new hardware, etc.) and you have to flip the switch on the midi, to turn on the Advanced features, then somehow it recognizes the USB device plugged in, but when you use the tutorial program, you must turn off the advance feature again to make it work. So there's much debugging to do on Roland's part. I don't know if it's better on Windows 7, but I have given up on Windows completely.
2. The tutor screen window size doesn't resize so you can't take advantage of the entire screen or if you have a large monitor you can't make it full screen. I think that might be an issue with the timing because the bars are constantly falling and in order to sync the tempo, they decided to just lock the window size and aspect ratio.
3. There's not enough beat/drum lesson variations to learn from. You can advance based on the lessons given, but the lessons are not enough.
4. import songs--only midi files. I thought it can import regular MP3 or WMA files to play along, but you can't. You have buy or download midi files somewhere to play along, But I haven't tried that yet.
5. No progress report--it doesn't do tracking of any kind. The moment the practice is stopped, everything you just did gets reset. So, I hope a version 2 come out soon with more advancements.
THe software will help sell the HD-1 set. Look at the Windows XP, it helped sell many laptops... I mean, (addressing to Roland) if the HD-1 is meant for novice, then, they need a way to learn to play the drum. You took the time to develop the software, why not make it a good one.
6. The design aspect--the color is good but overall layout and the cue should be refined. The bottomline where the note falls to the bottom and you are supposed to hit at that particular moment, that thing can have a much better design or graphic element. It is difficult to see.
The only reason I had my HD-1 for almost 2 years and I still don't know how to play drum is I have no teacher to teach me. Now, with this software, I can soon boast my drum ability.
I give it 3 stars because it has much room for improvement. It just seems Roland wants to push out a software too quickly without refining the features and functions.
But it is definitely a recommended buy if you are seriously considering learning drum and have the money to afford the HD-1 and this software bundle.
Good luck y'all.
Click Here to see more reviews about:
Roland DTHD1 Drum TutorRoland's HD-1 V-Drums Lite is a big hit with beginners around the world. To enhance the HD-1 experience and help drummers learn the fundamentals, Roland has created DT-HD1, a fun, educational, interactive software application. Connect your HD-1 to a PC via USB, launch the software, and play along and learn.Windows compatible (Vista/XP)
Click here for more information about Roland DTHD1 Drum Tutor
